MRSA at the umbilicus!!

Yikes...I think that the "not sterillizing" them anymore is your issue. Do they really have to work that hard to figure that one out? What worries me more though is....where did the MRSA come from to begin with to be growing on your sensors? Seems that your staff needs to have a bit of testing also.

We use those types of security sensors, but ours are sterilized routinely. I will pass this along though to make sure that never stops.

Please forward what you find out.

I'm still trying to figure out the need to put a security tag on the umbilicus. I'm just having a hard time picturing it. Why is this better as opposed to the ankle? What do they do when the umbilical cord falls off or if the kid has lines (well if you don't work in a NICU this probably isn't an issue)?

the security sensors are attached to the cord clamp. We used to have the ankle ones but they fell off very frequently and the powers that be thought that the cord ones were a bit more reliable. They get put on at birth and cannot be taken off till the cord clamp is removed. It works just like a cord clamp.

That is why I am glad we use security sensors that attach to the infant's ankle, not cord. Infection control is certainly a concern at the healing umbilicus.

I am not surprised, after all the umbi is just rotting, dying flesh-hence why a few days on some really stink

Our nursery does this too. We've only had one case of oomphalitis, that I'm aware of, in the 5 years I've been there.

Ok, here's the update. Management says they've traced it back to the cord clamp remover (which is incidentally a specially designed model sold by the company who provides our tags). We will now be sending our tags down to Sterile Processing who will be sending them back up in individual sealed sterile packages which we will then be flipping onto our delivery tables.

They have also devised a cleaning procedure for the cord clamp remover in which after a single use we will be soaking it in disinfectant for five minutes and then rinsing with alcohol.

We were just having the discussion last night about the umbilical tags vs. ankle tags and we would rather have had the ankle tags, but we weren't consulted when the decision was made.

I'm really glad that we're going to be sterilizing the tags, I just think it's ridiculous that it took three cases of infection before the policy/procedure was put into place. :angryfire